Oh no! We’ve only just begun?

Copy of a letter from the consultant at the RNTNE to local consultant arrived Saturday. I saw the address on the envelope and thought whoopee, news of when I might have the op. But no, just information including:

“Examination showed healthy tympanic membranes today. Her speech was clear and intelligible (oh good…..) Her audiogram showed some residual low frequency hearing in both ears but with a severe to profound loss at 1kHz and above. Her aided audiogram showed thresholds better than 5dB up to 3kHz. The BKB sentence scores were 33% with hearing aid in the left ear, 5% with the hearing aid in the right ear and 29% binaurally. Her previous audiogram from 2006 shows better hearing in the low frequencies bilaterally so there does appear to have been some progression and in fact in 2006 the hearing in the right ear was only slightly worse than the hearing on the left. From these initial results it would seem she may benefit with a cochlear implant (she MAY benefit???? Only MAY benefit???) and she is keen to consider this option so that I will arrange for her to undergo full assessment (so what have we been doing so far, is that not a full assessment, what will they make me do now? I just want to get on with it) and will review her once this has been completed.”

Oh the frustration of this slow and tedious process. What’s the bet they have lined up some appointments when I am due to go away early September for two weeks. Best I email the coordinator and tell her I am going away and ask what the next steps are and when they are likely to be.

The two patients who have opted for cochlear implants have already had their’s done (at St. Thomas/Guys) Perhaps I made the wrong choice?